Delhi High Court: In a case wherein, the Trial Court had submitted its order on sentence for confirmation of death sentence awarded to the appellant, pursuant to the judgment wherein the appellant was held guilty for offences punishable under Sections 364-A, 302, 201 and 506 of the Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’), and parallelly, the appellant had also challenged the said judgment of the Trial Court; the Division Bench of Mukta Gupta* and Anish Dayal, JJ., opined that the present case did not fall in the category of ‘rarest of rare cases’ and it was not a case where reformation of the appellant was not possible. This Court further opined that the sentence of imprisonment of life with no remission till 20 years would be the appropriate sentence. Thus, this Court modified the sentence of the appellant to rigorous imprisonment for life with no remission till 20 years and to pay a fine of Rs. 1 lakh.
Background
The deceased had gone to a nearby stationery shop and when he did not return, deceased’s uncle informed the police about the same and the information was recorded. Enquiry was made from the father of the deceased over phone, who informed that that he had received a text message on his mobile regarding kidnapping of his son and demand of ransom. Statement of complainant was recorded and rukka was prepared on which FIR under Section 364-A IPC was registered. The number from which the text message was received was put under technical surveillance and accordingly the mobile’s location was traced, and thus, secret informers in plain clothes were deployed in the area. On pointing out by the secret informer, the said suspicious person (appellant) was apprehended and thereafter arrested. The appellant led the police to the scene of crime and to the place where he had disposed of the dead body of the deceased, that is, in a dry drain.
Later, the appellant led the police to his house, where one silver colour Wagon-R was parked on the road outside his house. The Investigation Officer (‘IO’) called the mobile crime team who inspected the car and found bloodstains on the seat cover adjoining the driver seat and one jack handle having blood on its point/sharp side was found. Further, the appellant led the police team to the stationery shop from where he had kidnapped the deceased. Thereafter, upon completion of investigation, a charge-sheet was filed, and the appellant was charged for offences punishable under Sections 364-A, 302, 201 and 506 of the IPC.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court noted that at the time of awarding the death sentence, the Trial Court considered the mitigating circumstances, that is, the parents of the appellant were 56 and 51 years old and that he had a younger brother aged 30 years who was unmarried and that the appellant was unmarried who was merely 21 years of old at the time of commission of offence and was pursuing studies for Chartered Accountant. Thereafter, the Trial Court considered the aggravating circumstances, that is, the appellant kidnapped his neighbor’s son, demanded ransom, threatened the family of the deceased, murdered the deceased with jack handle of his car and also, smothered the deceased which resulted in the death of the deceased and thereafter, dumped the dead body of the deceased in an attempt to dispose of the evidence. Thus, the Trial Court opined that the manner of commission of the offence by the appellant was cruel and gruesome, therefore, the Trial Court deemed it appropriate to award death sentence to the appellant subject to confirmation by this Court.
This Court observed that the guidelines for awarding capital punishment as laid down by the Supreme Court in Macchi Singh v. State of Punjab, (1983) 3 SCC 470 were that the Court might award extreme penalty of death sentence in the rarest of rare cases when society’s collective conscience was so shocked that it expected the holders of the judicial power to inflict the death penalty irrespective of their personal opinion as regards the desirability or otherwise of retaining death penalty. This Court relied on Shankar Kisanrao Khade v. State of Maharashtra, (2013) 5 SCC 546, wherein the Supreme Court held that while awarding death sentence, the “crime test”, the “criminal test” and the “R-R test” must be looked into and not the “balancing test”.
This Court noted that the appellant was in financial stringency and needed money for which he had kidnapped the child and from the evidence on record, it appeared that the murder of the deceased was not preplanned as the appellant was not armed with any weapon, however when the appellant got stuck with his car, he smothered the victim and used the jack handle of his car to inflict injuries on the deceased so as to cause his death. This Court opined that though causing death of someone in itself is perversity, however causing death by smothering and inflicting injuries by jack handle though opined to be consistent with intense torture, could not be held to be a diabolic or seriously perverse manner of committing murder so as to shock the collective conscience of the society and fall in the category of rarest of rare cases.
This Court stated that no material had been placed on record by the State to show that the appellant was a menace to the society with no possibility of any reformation and that there was no other option except to award the extreme sentence of death. This Court also relied on Swamy Shraddananda (2) v. State of Karnataka, (2008) 13 SCC 767, wherein the Supreme Court noted that a special category of sentence might be formed wherein a convict might be directed to undergo an actual period of incarceration without remissions/commutations by the Executive so that death penalty could be put to actual use as little as possible and really in the rarest of rare cases. This Court further relied on Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh, (2023) 2 SCC 353, wherein the Supreme Court framed guidelines for psychiatric and psychological evaluation of convict before awarding death sentence.
This Court noted that the father of the appellant was in debt and besides he himself owed money to someone. The appellant was enrolled in the Chartered Accountant Course and there was no previous criminal history either of the appellant or his family members. On psychological assessment of the appellant, no such ailment or past history had been found. The Court further noted that as per the Nominal Roll, the jail conduct of the appellant was satisfactory except for one jail punishment and in the jail, the appellant was working as a Sahayak at the legal office and thus, it could not be said that the option of life sentence was unquestionably foreclosed as the appellant was capable of being reformed.
The Court also noted that the appellant was not armed with any weapon of offence and had kidnapped the minor child aged 12 for ransom which ransom messages he sent to the father of the victim and only when his car broke down and the appellant had to call for help from his friend, that he committed the murder of the victim by smothering him and inflicted injuries by jack handle available in the car. Hence, even though the offence of kidnapping for ransom was committed in a preplanned manner, it could not be held that the murder of the victim was committed in a pre-planned manner.
Thus, this Court opined that the present case did not fall in the category of ‘rarest of rare cases’ and it was not a case where reformation of the appellant was not possible. The Court further opined that the sentence of imprisonment of life with no remission till 20 years would be the appropriate sentence. Thus, this Court modified the sentence of the appellant to rigorous imprisonment for life with no remission till 20 years and to pay a fine of Rs. 1 lakh, in default whereof, to undergo simple imprisonment for six months for offence punishable under Section 302 of the IPC and the sentences awarded by the Trial Court for offences punishable under Sections 364-A, 201 and 506 of the IPC were not modified and would remain the same.
[Jeevak Nagpal v. State, 2023 SCC OnLine Del 3647, decided on 26-6-2023]
*Judgment authored by: Justice Mukta Gupta
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Appellant: Prithu Garg, APP; Bharat Dubey, Shubhlaxmi Dubey, Sonia Dubey, Tanya Kapoor, Prashant Diwan, Kushika Chachhra, Mayank Verma, Advocates;
For the Respondent: Prithu Garg, APP; Tushar Sannu, Standing Counsel; Prashant Diwan, Kushika Chachhra, Mayank Verma, Bharat Dubey, Shubhlaxmi Dubey, Sonia Dubey, Tanya Kapoor, Advocates.
Buy Penal Code, 1860 HERE
